


A Storm in Sussex

by earlybloomingparentheses



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Rain, Retirement, Sussex, a bit fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 19:27:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3822040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlybloomingparentheses/pseuds/earlybloomingparentheses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>One morning in the summer of 1912, when the sun was high and hot in the sky and the existence of rain seemed barely possible, Holmes and I were in the midst of a blazing row.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Storm in Sussex

Rain in Sussex is not like rain in London. Our great metropolis is also a very dirty one: full of smog, and smoke, and the muddy detritus of thousands of feet pounding up and down the cobblestones; and consequently, when it rains, the streets swirl with sludge and one never feels quite as refreshed by the downpour as one ought. In Sussex, the rain is _clean_. Clouds rush in, the heavens open, and pure clear water—tinged with the smell of salt from the not-so-far-off sea—washes over the hills and fields and scrubs clean the little towns, the lonely cottages.

One morning in the summer of 1912, when the sun was high and hot in the sky and the existence of rain seemed barely possible, Holmes and I were in the midst of a blazing row. Our relationship cannot precisely be called temperate—he would drive the most patient of men to fits at times, and I am not the most patient of men—but generally speaking our fights are brief flares which burn fast and clean; this, however, was the kind of toxic fire fanned higher and higher by each breath of wind. It had started over something trivial, a young admirer at the pub in the village whom Holmes had been rude to, and my too-sharp reprimand, and it had rapidly become the sort of dirty fight in which old wounds are heedlessly torn open, and all the wrongs committed during our multiple decades as lovers heaped onto the blaze. We ended in the middle of our front yard, shouting at each other as the sun beat down mercilessly, dampening our contorted brows with sweat and burning our faces as our anger burned inside us.

I stormed into our cottage, leaving Holmes fuming in the midst of the wilting bean patch.

_Damn him to hell_ , I thought furiously, and stomped around the house for a good twenty minutes, huffing and puffing and generally stoking the flames.

And then it began to rain.

Rain comes on quickly in Sussex—no sprinkling of little drops first, building gradually to a downpour; the clouds simply open up and douse the Downs in water. So it happened that morning, the bright sky turning suddenly dark before the gunfire sound of rain thrashed the roof. The temperature dropped to a more bearable level, and despite myself I felt my spirits rise: the world seemed suddenly lighter, fresher, more open.

_Holmes will stay outside in the wet,_ I thought, trying to hold onto my anger, _stay outside like the stubborn mule he is, and he will catch cold and of course it will be my fault_. I went round thrusting the windows open, not caring about the drops that spattered on the inside sills, annoyed at Holmes’ anticipated injustice. I was in the front hall, fiddling with the latch on the big bow window, when the front door swung open, and Holmes stood silhouetted in the doorway.

A gust of cold wind blew into the house, sprinkling drops of water onto my skin. But the protest died on my lips as I looked at Holmes, drenched, dripping, palms open and eyes alight.

God, how I loved that man.

He strode forward, and caught me up in his arms, fastening his lips on mine in a hungry kiss that my body welcomed without an atom of protest. I clutched him tighter as the wetness of his clothes soaked through to my skin, his rain-streaked face dampened mine, and the rain blew in through the open door. I buried my fingers in his sopping hair, and let out a desperate needy noise as his mouth opened against mine, his tongue sliding in, and the last of the sun-burning anger died in the glorious wet. I loved him, I loved him, _I loved him_.

Somehow we managed to shut the door, and we managed, with fumbling roaming hands, to divest each other of our clothes, leaving them in a sopping heap on the wood floor of our front hall. We didn’t make it to the bedroom, though, and pressed each other naked up against the wall, heedless of the complaint our aging bodies would certainly make the next morning. He slid his hands over my chest, my thighs, my scarred shoulder, and I could taste the rain as I licked along his neck, and then, turning him over, down his spine, and whatever we had said to each other in the heat of the moment was nothing to the heat in my groin, nothing to the heat of his skin in this most intimate of places, slick with cool water and warm spit and I could hear him moaning even through the noise of the downpour on the other side of the wall.

Afterwards, we cleaned ourselves off in the rain, standing outside under the deluge, mouths tipped open, chins tilted to the heavens. 

The rain continued through the afternoon and into the evening, and we wrapped ourselves in clean dry pyjamas and thick warm blankets and curled up by the fire with steaming mugs of tea, listening to the water on the roof, and where our hands were clasped together I could feel the blood pulsing through our veins, fresh and pure as summer rain.


End file.
